Macro photography never gets old. And the 153 entries to this week's Shooting Challenge prove it. (They also prove that people loooveee taking photos of insects, eyeballs and flowers—not that there's anything wrong with that!)

WINNER - Flower Stigma and Petal

On this shot I used a reversing ring to reverse the lens thereby creating a macro zoom. The only drawback is the depth of field is extremely narrow and reversing the lens means all focus has to be done manually. What caught my eye is the fantastic colours that the flower produce. They seem to have a glowing fluorescent quality to them. Canon 400D, 18-55mm (with reversing ring), ISO: 400, Shutter Speed: 1/100
- Jason Stanley

Australian Bearded Dragon

Eye of my Australian Bearded Dragon. His name is Stewie and I've had him for a few years and decided to test out this macro lens on him. His eye is about 1/8th of an inch in real life. All he needed was some water in a bowl and he sat still drinking it just long enough for me to catch this!
Shot with a Canon 7D with MP-E 65mm lens, ISO 200, F/8, 1/160th second shutter, 580 EX II flash and a desk lamp for light.
- Tom Molczynski

Fluffs

Went out during the "golden hour" to take some pictures, with this challenge in mind. I went out to the schoolyard and found the most pristine dead dandelion I could find. I looked at this one really hard before taking a picture, and was pretty fascinated actually with it's construction. The fluffy things acted almost as fiber optics and illuminated in the sunlight. I put camera on SUPER macro, lined that baby up with the sun and started taking pictures and tinkering with camera settings. I got a few I thought were satisfying. It was not until I loaded them on to the computer that I realized how selective of a focus this particular one has, with the "fluffs" in focus and the core not. I did some minor color correction in iPhoto. Fujifilm Finepix S6000FD, ISO 100, F2.8
- Matt Gurbarg

The Mind's Eye

This was an experiment I've been wanting to try for awhile. Shot with D300 + Sigma 150, ISO 400 at 1/100 f/4.5. Used one diffused, wireless SB-800 behind the subject to illuminate me, then used a flashlight to get accurate AF. Picture is taken, flash lights me up, everything gets exposed.
- Evan Kitaljevich

Oh, Hello

So I'm riding home on my bike and look down and see this little guy sitting like a hood ornament on my bike. He/She hung on till I got home....keeping in mind the Gizmodo Macro challenge I ran in and got my camera ...in the mean time he was happily spinning a web on the handle bar. 5D MarkII, Canon 100mm Macro, ISO 800, f/4.5, 1/100.
- Neville Sukhia

Dew the Dew

I live in East TN and currently we are having some great mornings filled with a heavy Dew. I got out early before sunrise on a search for anything dew covered as that tends to make everything look a little more spectacular and sometimes Alien. I took what I thought were several good photos and put them on my facebook for my friends to pick which to submit to Gizmodo. After they had a chance to vote I ended up choosing this photo (that didnt even get one vote from them). While its probably not my best shot from the morning, I guess I chose it because I had never seen a damsel fly with such a large accumulation of dew under its belly. This one was thrashing around trying to dislodge it from its chest and I snapped this pic just as it crashed into the leaf. However, the dew never came off and it wasnt until it lost its balance and fell from the grass blade that the large drop fell off. I have several photos of this sequence on this photos flickr page. I shoot all of my macro photos handheld and this one was no exception. I took this with the Canon T2i using the 100mm 2.8 and 2 Opteka Extension tubes. I had my 430EX on a Hakuba LH-1 flash bracket with a homemade paper towel diffuser, shot at ISO 200 f/11 and 1/200. No crop was needed but I did sharpen this in Lightroom.
- Drew Eldridge

Fly

I found this fly on the outside wall of my house, waiting for the Vancouver rain to stop. Nikon D7000, Nikon 105mm AF-D f/2.8, ISO: 800, 1/400 sec at f/7.1
- Sam To

Beehind

Being an Avid Macro photographer, I loved seeing this contest, I was going to my brothers house this weekend and I knew he had a great collection of roses of varying colors. I brought my camera and went out into his yard thinking I was going to get a flower picture, instead I saw the business end of a dead yellow jacket in one flower, so I captured this picture. I also got a good 2.5x magnification shot with my MP-E macro lens of a rusty screw in an outdoor light fixture, but I let my friends decide which they liked better and this one seems to be more popular. Canon 7d, Canon EF-S 60mm 1:2.8 Macro, Canon MT-24 Twinlight Macro Flash, 1/250 sec, ISO: 100, f/11.
- David Kamminga

Doppelgänger

The timing of this challenge couldn't have been better as my new lens only arrived Monday. After a quick look around found an old cicada moulting and this was the result. Between the cobwebs, the uniform golden colour and slightly decomposed look I expected to see something explode from its chest at any moment. Sadly it didn't happen and no tiny Ripley running around either! Nikon D7000; 105mm micro lens @f/9; 1/800s; a little levels, contrast and colour adjustment.
- Tom Wood

Big BuckyBalls

For this shooting challenge I used a set of magnetic buckyballs, which I keep at my desk to keep me occupied at times. I have always found them mesmerizing, particularly their many reflections off of each other in this cylindrical shape as you can see in this photo. To get some of the effects I wanted for this shot I shined a flashlight through the cylinder to create a bokeh type effect and better illuminate the reflections seen within the magnetic balls. The shot was taken with my Canon S95, ISO 80, f/2, 1/60 sec., and a focal length of 6mm.
- Lysle Turnbeaugh

Fuzzball

I love macro photography so this contest really hit me close to heart. I hate how people don't stop and look at things that are all around us. Some of the prettiest things in the world may be no bigger than our finger. i constantly walk around really slow looking at the ground and the bushes everything small. I use a Canon Eos Rebel T2i with a 18-55mm lens with a 10x attachment.
- Andrew Smith

Bananas for Incandescents

I decided to tackle this Giz Shooting Challenge because macro photography is a favorite of mine. I spent the better part of a sunny Saturday trying to find some suitable subjects for this shot, and of course I came home without so much as a decent flower shot. So I started snapping a few pics around the house, and thought it might be interesting to take a cool blown out shot of the inside of my desk lamp, and what do ya know? Thanks to the auto-exposure of my simple point-and-shoot, I got a nicely exposed and sharp photo of my incredibly bright lightbulb. Success was a few feet from where I started the challenge, figures. Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS, ISO: 80, 1/1250, F/8.0
- Spencer Wilde

Red Asiatic Lily

This is a picture of a Red Asiatic Lily in my backyard highlighting the anther and filament of the stamen. No macro lens used, just the camera's kit lens. I turned the autofocus off and rocked back and forth slightly to get the point of focus where I wanted it. Shot with a Canon EOS Rebel XSi, EF-S 18-55mm lens, f/5.6 at 1/200, ISO 100, exposure bias -.67.
- Chris Thompson

Refreshment

I took this shot with my Canon 60D and 60mm Canon Macro Lense. The setup: a vase full of sparkling water and a lime of course :-)! As I was was shooting outside and the sun was shining, I used ISO 100.
- Rüdiger

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Great work, everyone—the winner this week could have gone a number of ways, no doubt, I just loved the abstraction and color of the top pick. See the full galleries below and find wallpapers on flickr.